Encyclopedia
Latin America is the region of the
Americas where
Romance languages — those derived from
Latin — are officially or primarily spoken. Another American linguistic region, by its official
European language, is
Anglo-America, where
English predominates.
Definition
Definitions for what Latin America comprises vary:
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are not considerend parts of Latin America, even though the predominantly Iberian influenced language Papiamentu is more widely spoken in the
Netherlands Antilles and
Aruba than Dutch.
- Sometimes, particularly in the United States and Canada, the term "Latin America" is used to refer to all of the Americas south of the U.S., including countries such as Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados and Suriname where non-Romance languages prevail. Conversely, it is often used in Brazil to designate the Spanish-speaking countries within this area.
Geopolitically, Latin America is divided into 20 independent countries and several dependent territories.
Brazil is by far the largest country of Latin America, both in area and population. Its official language, Portuguese, sets it apart from other Latin American countries, which predominately use Spanish as their official language.
Etymology
Originally a political term,
Amerique Latine was coined by French emperor
Napoleon III, who cited
Amerique Latine and
Indochine as goals for expansion during his reign. While the term helped him stake a claim to those territories, it eventually came to embody those parts of the Americas that speak Romance languages initially brought by settlers from
Spain,
Portugal and, in a minor extent,
France in the 15th and 16th centuries. An alternate etymology points to
Michel Chevalier, who mentioned the term in 1836.
In the United States, the term was not used until the 1890s, and did not become a common descriptor of the region until early in the twentieth century. Before then,
Spanish America was more commonly used.
The term
Latin America has come to represent an expression equivalent to
Latin Europe and implies a sense of supranationality greater than those implied by notions of statehood or nationhood. This supranational identity is expressed through common initiatives and organizations, like the
South American Community of Nations. It is important to observe that the terms Latin American, Latin, Latino, and
Hispanic differ from each other.
Many people in Latin America do not speak Latin-derived languages, but native ones or languages brought over by immigration. There is also the blend of Latin-derived cultures with indigenous and
African ones resulting in a differentiation in relation to the Latin-derived cultures of Europe.
Quebec, other French-speaking areas in Canada and the United States like
Acadia,
Louisiana,
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and other places north of
Mexico are traditionally excluded from the sociopolitical definition of Latin America, despite having significant populations that speak a Latin-derived language, due in part to these territories' not existing as sovereign states or being geographically separated from the rest of Latin America.
French Guiana, however, is often included, despite being a dependency of France and not an independent country.
As alluded to above, the term
Ibero-America is sometimes used to refer to the nations that were formerly colonies of
Spain and
Portugal, as these two countries are located on the
Iberian peninsula. The Organization of Ibero-American States takes this definition a step further, by including
Spain and
Portugal among its member states, in addition to their Spanish and Portuguese-speaking former colonies in America.
History
for a treatment of Pre-Columbian civilisations and a general overview of the region's history.The
Americas are thought to have been first inhabited by people crossing the
Bering Land Bridge, now the
Bering strait, from northeast
Asia into
Alaska more than 10,000 years ago. Over the course of millennia, people spread to all parts of the continent. By the first millennium AD/CE, South America’s vast rainforests, mountains, plains and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people. Some groups formed permanent settlements, such as the Chibchas and the
Tairona groups. The Chibchas of
Colombia, the
Quechuas of
Peru and the
Aymaras of
Bolivia were the three Indian groups that settled most permanently.
The region was home to many indigenous peoples and advanced civilizations, including the
Aztecs,
Toltecs,
Caribs, Tupi, Maya, and
Inca. The golden age of the Maya began about 250, with the last two great
civilizations, the Aztecs and Incas, emerging into prominence later on in the early 14th century and mid-15th centuries, respectively.
With the arrival of the Europeans following
Christopher Columbus's voyages, the indigenous elites, such as the Incans and Aztecs, lost power to the Europeans.
Hernán Cortés destroyed the Aztec elite's power with the help of local groups who disliked the Aztec elite, and
Francisco Pizarro eliminated the Incan rule in Western South America. European powers, most notably
Spain and
Portugal, colonized the region, which along with the rest of the uncolonized world was divided into areas of Spanish and Portuguese control by the Line of Demarcation in 1493, which gave Spain all areas to the west, and Portugal all areas to the east . By the end of the 16th century, Europeans occupied large areas of Central and South America, extending all the way into the present southern United States. European culture and government was imposed, with the Roman Catholic Church becoming a major economic and political power, as well as the official religion of the region.
Diseases brought by the Europeans, such as
smallpox and
measles, wiped out a large proportion of the indigenous population, with epidemics of diseases reducing them sharply from their prior populations. Historians cannot determine the number of natives who died due to European diseases, but some put the figures as high as 85% and as low as 20%. Due to the lack of written records, specific numbers are hard to verify. Many of the survivors were forced to work in European plantations and mines. Intermarriage between the indigenous peoples and the European colonists was very common, and, by the end of the colonial period, people of mixed ancestry formed majorities in several colonies.
By the end of the 18th century, Spanish and Portuguese power waned as other European powers took their place, notably Britain and France. Resentment grew over the restrictions imposed by the Spanish government, as well as the dominance of native Spaniards over the major institutions and the majority population, including the Spanish descended Creoles .
Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 marked the turning point, compelling Creole elites to form juntas that advocated independence. Also, the newly independent
Haiti, the second oldest nation in the
New World after the
United States, further fueled the independence movement by inspiring the leaders of the movement, such as
Simón Bolívar and
José de San Martin, and by providing them with considerable munitions and troops. Fighting soon broke out between the
Juntas and the Spanish authorities, with initial Creole victories, such as Father
Miguel Hidalgo's in
Mexico and
Francisco de Miranda's in
Venezuela, crushed by Spanish troops. Under the leadership of
Simón Bolívar,
José de San Martin and other
Libertadores the independence movement regained strength, and by 1825, all of Spanish Latin America, except for Puerto Rico and Cuba, gained independence from Spain.
Brazil achieved independence with a constitutional monarchy established in 1822. During the same year in
Mexico, a Spanish military officer,
Agustín de Iturbide, led conservatives who created a constitutional
monarchy, with Iturbide as
emperor .
Political divisions
Latin America is often seen as encompassing the following regions:
In addition, some might add
Belize, the
Falkland Islands,
Guyana, and
Suriname to this list, but they are not culturally or linguistically Latin American - although much of Belize's population is. They maintain economic ties with nearby countries, and are grouped by the
United Nations in predominantly Latin American
regions . However, all except Suriname are also the objects of long-standing territorial claims by their Latin American neighbors.
Population
The population of Latin America is an amalgam of ethnic groups. The composition varies from country to country; some have a predominance of a racially mixed population, some have a high percentage of people of
Amerindian origin, some are dominated by inhabitants of European origin and some populations are primarily of African origin.
Demographics
Although, many from outside of Latin America may perceive all Latin Americans as being of mixed stock and heritage, Latin America has a very diverse population, with many ethnic groups and different ancestries or races, the majority of which are either of European, African, or Amerindian descent, or a mix of these.
Only in three countries do the
Amerindians make up the majority of the population. This is the case of
Peru,
Guatemala, and
Bolivia. In the rest of the Continent, most of the Native American descendants are of partial mixed race ancestry.
Since the 16th century a large number of
Iberian colonists left for Latin America: the Portuguese to
Brazil and the Spaniards to the rest of the region. An intensive race mixing between the Europeans and the Amerindians occurred and their descendants make up the majority of the population in several Latin American countries, such as
Mexico,
Chile,
Colombia,
Ecuador,
El Salvador,
Honduras,
Nicaragua,
Panama, and
Venezuela.
Starting in the late 16th century, a large number of
African slaves was brought to Latin America, the majority of whom were sent to the
Caribbean and Brazil. Nowadays,
Blacks make up the majority of the population in most Caribbean countries. Many of the African slaves in Latin America mixed with the Europeans and their descendants, known as
Mulattoes, make up the majority of the population in some countries, such as
Cuba, and large percentages in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and
Belize. Mixes between the Blacks and Amerindians also occurred, and their descendants are known as
Zambos. Many Latin American countries also have a substantial tri-racial population, which ancestry is a mix of Amerindian, White, and Black, especially in
Puerto Rico,
Venezuela,
Brazil, and the
Dominican Republic.
Large numbers of European immigrants arrived in Latin America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of them settling in the
Southern Cone and in southern Brazil. Nowadays this combined region has a large majority of people of European descent and in all more than two thirds of Latin America's white population, which is in turn more than 90% composed of descendants of the top five groups of i
